1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to laundry machines such as automatic clothes dryers, and more particularly, to an air vent for use with such machines.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In automatic clothes dryers it is common to vent the warm moisture-laden exhaust air or vapor outside the machine and preferably even outside the house or building while air is constantly being introduced into the clothes dryer, heated and passed over the fabrics to be dried. It is not, however, always possible and, in fact, it may not be desirable to provide such a venting system for automatic clothes dryers in apartments or other high rise housing establishments. In drying fabrics in a clothes dryer it is highly desirable to be able to heat the air, pass the heated air over the fabrics to be dried and withdraw moisture therefrom, remove the hot moisture-laden air from the fabrics and introduce it into an apparatus that lowers the temperature of the moisture-laden air thereby condensing out moisture from the air, then recirculate the air through the clothes dyer. Condensing apparatus has been utilized in laundry machines, both combination clothes washers and dryers and automatic clothes dryers, for many years.
In laundry machines it may be desirable to have an air vent that allows air from outside the machine into the drum when the machine is not in operation. Such an air vent would be desirable in a laundry machine wherein there would not be sufficient oxygen supply in the drum to sustain life in the event a child was trapped in the drum with the door in a closed position. Such an air vent must, however, assume a closed condition during operation of the laundry machine so that the efficiency of the machine is not detrimentally affected by the admission of cold air from outside the machine. It is also important in such an air vent that it be located so that it will automatically open and close when it should and that its operation and function cannot be bypassed either by the machine or human failure.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an air vent for a laundry machine which accomplishes the above mentioned desirable results.